Testament: Persona

Chapter 9: Home Invasion

Tokyo, Moriyama Residence

Near Midnight

The moon is eerily bright that night, exhibiting the light it usurped from the sun upon the night sky. Throughout the years after the Christmas Meltdown, the heart of Japan had not only become a more centralized governmental district but home to many apartment complexes. Among the people of Tokyo, some are lucky enough to be economically gifted and given a home of their own. One including the home to the Moriyamas.

The house has not been the best place to call home in the meantime. Especially when their only daughter was placed under arrest for homicide and use of illegal substances. Temporarily, their daughter, Natsuki, was placed under arrest at the mental institute while waiting for the law's jurisdiction to decide whether she will be fully admitted to the sanitarium or the juvie. Either way, no path is better than the other.

"I've told you many times! Can't you do something about it?! We paid a shit-ton of money for you to do your job! I know the risk! I thought you're the best lawyer around!" a woman in her mid-40s, Natsuki's mother, shouted to her lawyer on the other side of the phone.

"Come on, dear. It's near midnight. We might disturb the neighbor." Mr. Moriyama approached his wife, still on the phone, seemingly ignoring his words.

"What about rehab? If she agrees to go through rehab, she might get a lighter sentence?" Mrs. Moriyama inquired and quickly cut the conversation short after hearing several footsteps, which seem to come from groups of people near her neighborhood. "I'll talk to you later. You'd better get my daughter out of this mess."

Mr. Moriyama walked towards his wife, looking concerned, "What's all that commotion out there?"

"I don't know…." Mrs. Moriyama put down her phone and serenely tip-toed to her husband's side, almost like she was hiding from something.

"Go check the window!" She expressed her anxiety in an angry-like manner. Her husband sauntered towards the nearest window and carefully pulled the curtain just enough for him to peep the streets.

He saw several figures standing near a black van parked next to a nearby lamppost. It was dark outside, but he could make out that the men were clad in red robes and topped with a pointy red hood cloaking their faces. "I think it's some kind of Halloween cosplay or something," Mr. Moriyama mumbled to his wife, trying to reassure her the situation is under his control.

"Honey, it's May," Mrs. Moriyama whispered behind her husband, trying to peek over his shoulder.

Mr. Moriyama squinted his gaze to take a better look at the suspicious group of people as more people with the same outfit as the red-robed men started coming out of several other cars parked around the neighborhood. He didn't see how many people were in the group, but he could make out at least a dozen of them. The men near the lamp post pointed left and right as if giving out orders inaudible to Mr. Moriyama. Anxiousness rose when Mr. Moriyama noticed some of them had duffel bags in their hands.

"Dear, please go upstairs," Mr. Moriyama signaled his wife by waving his wrist back and forth.

"What? Can you tell me what's going on?"

Mrs. Moriyama pushed her husband away forcefully to peek at the window through the small curtain opening. Then she noticed the red-robed group of people walking through the dimly lighted streets but visibly seem to head to their doorway. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

As the red-robed people walked towards the doorway of Moriyama residence, some of them lined up horizontally as if surrounding the vicinity with their presence. One man from the middle of the group walked towards the door, attempting to apply pressure on the doorbell with his long slinky finger slipping from the baggy red cloth covering his figure. As his finger reached the button, an electrically synthesized sound emulating a retro doorbell rang within the household.

Mr. Moriyama didn't want to respond at first, distancing himself from the front door. He told his wife to get away as the 40-year-old woman scurried through the flight of steps. The husband slid down one of the paintings hung in the living room, revealing a rusty old shotgun that didn't even look fit to burst fire. The bell ring started to get more ferocious as the frequency between rings got shorter and shorter, which obviously started to bug the man of the household. With several quantities of buckshot loaded into the shotgun in his hands, he inhaled air deep into his lungs and exhaled strongly, preparing himself for the worst as he pressed the intercom, answering the men's call from inside.

"Yes?"

"Good evening. Is this the Moriyama residence?" A raspy-sounding voice echoed from within the small box of machination.

"Yes. What need do you have with us?"

"I take it you are Mr. Moriyama Kazuo, then?"

"Yes, what of it?"

Waiting for an answer from the suspicious man, instead of another response from the intercom, he heard mechanical clicking and a clutch of metallic tools. He recognized that sound. It resembles a…

A gun!

It was too late when he realized the fact, and in a split second, with a loud bang, shrapnel of bullet shot through his abdomen. As the sharp noise propagated and decayed, it's soon followed by the rapid sound of similar sharp noise, making honeycombs out of the household wall. With bullets shot through the middle-aged man, the force was enough to throw him backward, hitting his back against the wooden floor, tarnished it with splatters of red blood.

With the middle-aged man on the floor, his last breath leaving through the gape of his mouth, the man pulling the trigger kicked the door opened and waltzed clumsily into the house with the others following him. The man crouched down, put his machine pistol away, hiding it within his red robe. He pulled the hood shadowing his face, revealing a bald head with the insignia of a pentagram engraved on his forehead. Reaching out his arm, he saintly wiped the open eyes of his victim, closing them, followed by him clapping his hands together, displaying his respect.

"Namatame-sama, the police will come after all that. What do we do?" A younger voice spoke from behind the ranks, a tint of inexperience and worry from his voice. The man he's talking to simply sighed and stood up, putting his hand on the younger member's shoulder. He looked up to the ceilings and back to the youth, whispered,

"Laws made by men, protected by those who uphold them. But the words from lord Mammon are laws above men. And when lord Mammon tells you to purge the pest in your homes. You purge the pests." The bald man, Namatame, looked at the younger member with his bloodshot eyes staring down, emitting his strong zealousness and charisma in his voice.

Namatame then directed his glare to the rest of the group, "Betrayal to the sect will bring you nothing but death. Our sister betrayed our master's trust, which led us here, the purge of the unclean. For the imperfection to be cleansed requires the root to be severed."

The other members nodded in unison, mumbling yeses and agreement to their leader's words. Namatame continued, "we do not take lives out of rage, jealousy, distaste, but an obligation. We should not fear the laws of men, for we are right in the eyes of our master, Lord Mammon! Let's let the world know of his vision of the pure world!"

The group cheered, raising the guns in their hands in the air.

"Now, let's purge the last of the vermin! Check the house!" The other man next to Namatame, who seemed to be his second in command, exclaimed, sending the other members to work. The group ransacked the entire residence, be it cellars, bathrooms, even the dustiest corners of the house weren't left unchecked.

"Do you think they are going to come?" the second in command whispered to Namatame.
"If Lord Mammon wills it, so shall it be true."

The bald man climbed the stairs and walked into what seems to be the master bedroom. Closing his eyes, he focused his mind and whispered, "I know you're here, Mrs. Moriyama."

Namatame planted his steps slowly as he scoured the room for hints about his prey's whereabouts. He pulled out a pill container and took out a red-colored pill from it, and put it on his tongue. In an instant, he felt a jolt of adrenaline, heightening all his senses, enabling him to feel even the slightest movement of particles in the air.

"There you are!" He looked sideways towards a wooden wardrobe and reached out his arm, making gestures with his fingers as if he was grabbing something in the air. And as he slowly tightened the muscles of his fingers and moved them to a clenching fist, the wooden container started to creak as if an immense amount of pressure was pressed against it.

Inside the wardrobe, Mrs. Moriyama felt the already tight space around her moving in towards her, attempting to crush her plump body. The air starts to feel thin in an instant as she hyperventilates profusely with the dread and disbelief of what she saw. The mysterious group raiding her house, the man in front of her trying to force her out of her hiding by using some magical tricks. The world just doesn't make any sense to her anymore. She was having dinner with her husband hours ago, for crying out loud. But one thing is certain, the man in front of her is responsible for the violence happening in her household. She lost her daughter; now, she dreaded the thought of losing her husband, too. She clenched the knife she took before hiding in the dark wooden box and exhaled an intense burst of air out of her mouth, bracing herself for what she's about to do.

She kicked open the already weakened wooden covers of the wardrobe and lunged herself as hard as she could, pointing the tightly gripped knife, aiming every rage, confusion, and fear at the tip of her knife towards the unexpecting man.

Unfortunately, the pointy end of the knife stopped a few inches from Namatame's face. He caught the arm of the woman trying to murder him. Shock filled the eyes of Mrs. Moriyama, feeling immense despair. She felt her knees weakened and let herself succumb to the powerlessness, leaving her body limping, dangling by the man's firm grasp by her arm.

The bald-headed man looked at the woman's terrified figure with a strange mixture of pity and satisfaction. "You are going to die for a holy cause, for the sake of a pure world." He snatched the knife from the woman's hand and instead, placing it near to her neck, attempting to slit her throat open.

"Under Lord Mammon's order, I purge you."

Mrs. Moriyama closed her eyes, praying at the last moment of her life. She tried to think only about her daughter, fearing for her future. Her safety. Dread and remorse filled her chest as the cold steel contacted the skin of her neck.

BANG

A loud bang echoed several miles away. A gunshot from an unknown position pierced the very flesh of the man's wrist, resulting in him ultimately dropping the knife. Mrs. Moriyama just knelt there, petrified.

The leader of the group screamed in agony while holding his bloodied right hand. And with his scream, he caught the other members' attention, quickly rushing into the room their sect leader was in.

"Namatame-sama!" one of the cult's members slouched down, trying to put additional pressure on his respected leader's blood-soaked arm.

Following the gunshot, sirens from police cars could be heard wailing louder and louder towards their position. Namatame pushed his disciple next to him with brute force, rage displayed on his bony face. He looked towards the window and down at the streets, witnessing several police cars already blockading their point of entry, complete with law enforcers and their Riot shields.

He suddenly felt a chill down his spine as the slight hint of Magnetite escaped his body. Their real motive was not just the purging of the Moriyamas but something else. The Moriyamas are just bait to lure something bigger. And that something is currently heading towards them, much to their favor.

Namatame raised both his arms, regardless of his injury, to a pose akin to that of a crucified messiah and exclaimed, "Children of the New Eden! We have hidden for far too long! Bare your fangs! The crusade for the pure New Eden has begun! In the name of our Lord Mammon!"

"In the name of our Lord Mammon!" the rest of the cult members exclaimed and pulled guns out of their respective matching red robes. The group scattered around the house, barricading themselves behind tables and every piece of furniture they could find.

Namatame squinted his eyes and spotted a black chopper heading their way, and due to the sight enhancement from the pills, he could confirm a woman carrying a sniper rifle hanging on the chopper's railings, holding it steady for another shot.

As the bullet left the muzzle of the sniper rifle, with a loud bang, it heads steadily towards its target, Namatame, with its optimal range and velocity, making it almost an inevitable fatality. However, the bullet instead curved mere degrees and only grazed Namatame's bony cheek. It's as if the bullet itself refuses physical contact with its target.

"Namatame-sama, get away from the window!" his second in command pulled him away from the window towards the corridor of the house.

"I could feel him. The sacrificial lamb." Namatame mumbled.
"You mean the new Persona user?"
"Remember, we need his blood sample. The target is Aragaki Shinjiro." Namatame pulled out an empty injection to his second in command, "for the sake of New Eden."

One of his followers turned his head towards the master bedroom and inquired, "Namatame-sama, what about the woman? Should I purge her?" he aligned the iron sight on his gun on the kneeling woman.

Namatame stood up, lowered the younger member's gun with his right arm, which appeared to have healed fully. He just looked at the woman with a cold stare as a flash of idea crossed his mind.

"She's our bargaining chip."

Next Chapter: 50 Ways Things Could Go South